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Transnational families have long used migration as a strategy for upward social mobility. However, migration projects are increasingly complex and often do not involve a single move from one country to another. Drawing on qualitative interviews, this paper explores how Latin American families negotiate different stages of their migration from Latin America to Spain to the UK. The paper demonstrates how families negotiate within the opportunity structures afforded to them to achieve physical and social mobility. These opportunities are structured by different legal regimes and the way that immigration, citizenship and labour market policies are implemented. The initial migration from Latin America to Spain had enabled Latin American families to gain economic stability and EU citizenship, but at the cost of a period of family separation. However, faced with the financial crisis, some families opted for onward migration to the UK, a process that resulted in families becoming "re‐transnationalised." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature on multiple migrations by using qualitative data to address two questions. First, why do some migrants engage in multiple moves that may include returns or re‐migrations? Second, how do migrants frame these multiple migrations? The paper focuses on the paths of Colombians and Ecuadorians in Spain as they reacted to the 2008 economic crisis, which severely affected their employment options. The crisis started a new migratory cycle in Spain, with significant numbers of migrants who returned to countries of origin or migrated onward. This paper argues that precarious incorporations leave migrants susceptible to economic shocks and push many to move again. New migrations are often a constant search for stability that is marked by precarity and mediated by economic resources, gendered expectations and generational attachments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptually, this paper relies on the asset accumulation framework and identifies its relevance to work on Argentine migrants to Spain and returnees. The asset accumulation framework represents an innovative approach to understanding the complexities of migratory flows in a transnational context. In order to comprehend and tackle migration, this framework pays particular attention to investment and savings in various domains, including the financial, social, human, civic and political fields. Responding to gaps in current studies, the objective of this paper is twofold. First, it expands the asset accumulation framework by differentiating between civic and political assets. Second, using data drawn from interviews conducted among Argentine migrants and returnees in the cities of Barcelona and Buenos Aires, this paper fleshes out the definition of civic assets. The findings indicate that, for interviewees, moving to Spain implied the accumulation of civic assets that enhanced the development of a more equitable and democratic society. Respondents incorporated new civic capabilities in several areas, including increased environmental awareness and tolerance for minority groups, as well as the acquisition of knowledge about equity and labour rights. In addition, results suggest that, as a result of the migratory experience, many interviewees went through reflective processes that made them question their old presumptions about both the receiving and sending societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to show the relationship between co-development projects with transnational interests and the governance of migration by the Spanish and Ecuadorian governments. On one hand, the emergence of co-development is linked with the political dimension of migration, and therefore, with the challenges that its management poses for both the sending and receiving states. Simultaneously, the state exists in a context of the reconfiguration of its traditional functions, and above all, the manner in which it goes about performing them. For these reasons, co-development projects form part of state governance strategies, based on a special understanding of the nexus between migration and development in European social space, involving international organizations, state governments, and civil society, linked by migratory flows. This is demonstrated in the case of Ecuador and Spain. Since Spain stimulated co-development, the implementation of projects with Ecuador has been emphasized, due to the dimensions achieved by Ecuadorian migration. Co-development politics and projects are analyzed in this paper as areas of intervention integrated by values, guide lines and cultural understandings about migration, including appropriate forms of control and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an exploratory content analysis has been developed for a case study on the topic of immigration reported in the regional newspapers of the largest Spanish autonomous community, Castilla and Leon. This study based its research conceptualization on the framing theory in mass communication. In addition to usual issue frames and issue images, two framing devices were established for analytic variables -- the index of importance and the index of affective attribute. They formed a frame package capable of making latent frames evident by their linkage to manifest frames. Comparing to the general assumption of relevant-bad-news production, results obtained in this study proved that, on occasion, negative news stories could be reported as less relevant than the positive ones. The outcomes also show how concept mapping of frames was applicable to immigration issues and immigrants' visual aspects of immigrant communities that were systematically articulated and disseminated by the press in this regional society of Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we offer an initial assessment of the impact of the economic crisis on Spain's migration flows. After a period of intensive economic growth and the ensuing immigratory appeal (1995-2007), Spain has been hit hard by the recession. This has modified the trends that had so far characterized foreign immigration in Spain. The impact of the economic recession has been particularly severe in the case of immigrant workers and, consequently, from an institutional point of view, the Spanish government has adopted various measures to restrict the arrival of new immigrants: it has reduced work permit quotas and it has modified the Foreign Residents Law, toughening residence permit requirements. It has also tried to encourage voluntary returns with a programme devised to provide assistance to immigrants originating from countries with which Spain has social security agreements. The response to this programme has, however, been very limited. Immigration flows have continued and rates of return have stayed low, although new trends are also detectable, such as a decrease in the number of irregular arrivals and a rise in informal employment, as well as differences in the impact of unemployment according to nationality and gender. This reveals the complexity of migration processes beyond the supply and demand of labour and the political will to regulate human mobility. Consequently, immigration patterns in Spain reveal the degree of complexity reached by human mobility, which has increased beyond the logic of the labour market and the government's attempts at regulating migration flows by means of institutional measures. The immigrants' hope of raising their standard of living and the socio-economic differences between source and receiving countries, even at a time of severe economic crisis, do still serve as explanations for current migration networks, one of the key points in the current debate on international migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of employment and occupational attainment of recent immigrants to Spain. We use data from the Spanish labour force surveys for the years between 2002 and 2007 and compare the probability of being active versus inactive and that of being employed versus unemployed among immigrants and native-born Spaniards, using logistic regression models. The paper then moves on to investigate the quality of the occupation achieved by means of multinomial logistic regression models. We find evidence that immigrants are not at a disadvantage in comparison to native-born Spaniards regarding the risk of unemployment. This is true even after controlling for differences in socio-demographic characteristics between immigrants and Spaniards and, in particular, after accounting for the duration of time spent in the labour market. On the other hand, a strong and persistent disadvantage even after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics is confirmed for immigrants as far as their access to skilled occupations is concerned. Furthermore, this disadvantage does not disappear as time spent in the host country increases. Our findings, thus, go against the assimilation hypothesis that predicts that immigrant's occupational attainment should progressively converge to that of natives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract During the past 15 years, the Chinese migrant community in Spain has grown significantly. Originally a small and dispersed population, it now ranks fourth among the migrant groups from non-European Union (EU) countries. Its increasing presence in daily urban life is evident everywhere. Even though the Chinese community has a long history of settlement in Spain, the Spanish population still considers the Chinese as a closed and somewhat mysterious community. References to exaggerated stereotypes and prejudices regarding their activities and social organization can often be overheard in daily conversations. However, China, usually considered exotic and remote, has recently assumed greater importance in Spain's foreign policy. Thus, the Spanish Government has drawn up the Asia-Pacific Framework Plan for 2000–2002 as part of its international policy considerations, thereby extending its interests to include areas well beyond its traditional foreign policy focus on Latin America. The Government's objectives are to expand its economic relations with Asia, to enhance trade and tourism with the area, expand the development cooperation with China, the Philippines, and Viet Nam — countries defined as top priorities for the Spanish Government — and to reinforce linguistic and cultural ties with these countries (Bejarano, 2002). In support of the Asia-Pacific Framework Plan, the Casa Asia (House of Asia) was established in Barcelona in 2002, an institution created to organize academic and artistic activities in order to promote the knowledge of the region among Spaniards, and to foster political, economic, and cultural relations with Asia. The Government intends to pursue two important objectives related to the increasing commitments it is seeking to establish with China, and which are also of relevance to the overseas Chinese as the principal social actors involved. First, the strengthening of commercial exchanges with the People's Republic of China (PRC) are likely to benefit import-export activities among the Chinese migrants, and be supported by their knowledge and practical experience of the respective social environments. Second, the dissemination of information on Spain is expected to establish and maintain stronger links in both directions. In the near future, these initiatives may also be instrumental in increasing the movement of people between China and Spain. Besides these primary objectives, the initiative pursues another important aim — the promotion of the social integration of the Chinese migrant community in the country. This paper addresses these issues, including data sources and their availability on Chinese migrants in Spain, the relevant local legal framework and how it influences the development of the Chinese migrant group, its sociodemographic composition, and migratory patterns. Finally, it addresses the changes in their economic activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]